


Move Right Through Me On My Way To You

by Aepyceros



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Is Sunshine, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Finds Out, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Finds Out First, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Has a Crush on Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Identity Reveal, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Loves Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Makes Puns, Adrinette | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Frottage, Hot Mess Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Love Confessions, Love at First Sight, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Identity Reveal, Men Crying, Mentioned Plagg and Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug), Miraculous Ladybug Love Square, My First Work in This Fandom, Plagg Being Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Plagg is a Little Shit (Miraculous Ladybug), Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Post-Reveal Pre-Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Pre-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Protective Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Sad Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Scared Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Slow Burn, Supportive Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug), TV Special: Miraculous World: New York, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, We Are All Alya Césaire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29616429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aepyceros/pseuds/Aepyceros
Summary: She had been burning in red and orange and then the Red became Pink, and the Pink became Marinette. Of course. Red was his Lady, and Pink was his Princess, and they were both Blue, and of course, because it couldn't have been anyone else. It had to be Marinette, his Everyday Ladybug who tripped down the classroom steps right before leaping off a stadium roof and into battle her first minutes in spots. The woman who'd saved his ass on rooftops would have to be the girl who put her ass on the line under his father's roof. She stood for truth, she stood up to liars, she stood in the gap for her friends just as much as her city. Marinette was the only person it could have ever been. Of course it was her. And he was an utter fool.It's been four years since Paris gained it's beloved superheroes. Marinette still pines over Adrien; Chat Noir still pines for Ladybug. What Marinette doesn't know is how much Marinette means to Chat Noir. With an akuma burning its way through Paris, Ladybug needs her devoted partner by her side. But when he sees Marinette's home engulfed in flame, there's only one way for her to prove to him that Marinette issafe. Ladybug needs her Chaton and is out of options.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 61
Kudos: 167





	1. Well I'm Not Paralyzed

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in this fandom. I really love these characters so much and their heart-breaking devotion for each other without even realizing it. More chapters coming! Comments and kudos always appreciated.

It is a beautiful Thursday morning as Marinette locks the bakery doors and practically skips to class. Her parents had headed off to a baker’s convention in Frankfurt before dawn, and she has the whole flat to herself for an entire weekend! She has plans for her and her friends, providing Hawk Moth lays low for a few more days. Alya, Nino, and Adrien [ _Adrien!_ ] will be coming over tomorrow after school for video games and general hang-out time [hint, hint], and since Nino and Alya will be sticking close to one another in the get-a-room level of couply-ness that has only intensified in the last two years [ _is that even normal??_ ], that will inevitably pair her and [ _still-single-since-Kagami!_ ] Adrien up by default…

Granted she knows nothing will _actually happen_ with Adrien Agreste, gorgeous icon of Paris fashion - and close personal friend, very good friend, and just a friend - but that doesn’t stop her imaginating every improbable possibility. And on the flip side, if her fantasies stay just that - fantasy - well, she doesn’t have to keep quiet about it...alone in her bed, surrounded by photos of Adrien’s gorgeous face [ _everything_ ] inside an otherwise-vacant flat… Win-win, right? She sighs wistfully, stumbling through the campus gates, and tamps down her wandering thoughts as she makes her way to her first class of the day [ _with ADRIEN! Ugh, Marinette, get a grip!_ ].

She bursts into the classroom door feeling all the weightiness of a purified akuma and ready to start the day [ _the day-before-the-day that will end with her (not likely) curled up against the side of Adrien Agreste, meeting his eyes that shine with light from the tv as Alya and Nino make out next to them...their lips drifting closer…_ ] and promptly blushes and stumbles as she meets the full force of Adrien’s smiling green [ _so green!_ ] eyes. [ _So much for her attempts to redirect the trajectory of her thoughts. It’s not fair what he does to her without even knowing!_ ]

Alya gives her an eyebrow raise as Marinette shakily steps up to her usual spot beside her, and Marinette answers with a shrug and painfully strained, overly-wide grin. Adrien glances back over his shoulder with a shy wave, and Marinette collapses in her seat with a pink flush spreading across her pale cheeks. Alya smirks and opens her mouth for a snarky remark, but Marinette is saved further awkwardness as class is called to order. Alya’s knowing look makes sure Marinette knows EXACTLY what is on her mind. _I see you ogling Sunshine Boy and those gears of yours turning with thoughts of your empty house… Girl, you got it so bad. STILL._ Marinette grumbles in response to the brown eye roll and emphatically ignores the unspoken accusation.

When Adrien leaves campus early to knock out obligations to his father as part of his arrangement for a free Friday night, Marinette is disappointed but unsurprised. She knows all about the tentative truce between the father and son regarding Adrien’s blooming social life. In fact, she knows more about those specific details than she SHOULD know, but that fact is only shared between her, her alter-ego, and her Adrien-adorned bedroom walls. _[Ladybug wasn’t spying or anything… she was just looking out for the good of an upstanding fellow citizen of Paris...someone she’d rescued and would always protect...even if it meant knowing where he could possibly be akumatized at any moment…totally reasonable! Right??_ ]

When the final class of the day dismisses, Marinette heads home alone to accomplish the unfortunate (but necessary) task of Adrien-proofing her room ahead of tomorrow night’s get-together. She figures the foursome will head straight to the bakery after their last class of the week, and the last thing she wants is for Adrien to know the extent to which she idolized his, uh, “fashion sense.” [ _Especially his summer swimwear line. Particularly the trunks designed for competitive swimmers…_ ] She might as well take care turning what in all practicality could be described as a “shrine” into something more believable as “inspirational materials” for a blooming fashion designer. [ _Oh, he inspired her all right…_ ] The attempts at de-Adriening her walls [ _...and bedside table...and ceiling above her bed…_ ] are almost instantaneously abandoned for the fantasies playing out in her hormone-addled brain, and she settles herself onto her bed for a round of said “inspiration.”

Just then, as if on cue, the akuma alert sounds. With a wistful last, lusty glance at her sexy shirtless muse, she calls Tikki for her transformation and dashes up and out of her skylight in a flash of pink.

~π~

The akuma of the evening identifies as, simply, “The Fireman.” Dressed as a firefighter, he is equipped with a hose that, instead of water, shoots out blasts of liquid fire that instantly engulf any object or structure upon contact. Ladybug circles the long way around to meet up with Chat Noir on the bell towers of Notre Dame, and together they take stock of the rapidly-devolving situation. By now, however, Fireman has left his point of akumatization near the Luxemburg Gardens and is headed in their direction, sending blasts through Marinette’s neighborhood as he makes his way down the nearby streets.

Fortunately, Parisians by this point have become adept at evacuating at the first sign of the semi-regular attacks by Hawk Moth’s villains, so the only real casualty at stake is the property damage. And that can be easily remedied with a Miraculous Ladybug charm. Ladybug doesn’t like the idea of her home however-temporarily lost to flames but isn’t too worried about what will be soon restored. Paris needs her, and she can’t allow a momentary personal inconvenience distract her. She sighs and frowns because it still sucks to have to see her home and everything she owns, all her ideas and sketches, go up in flames.

However, it is Chat Noir’s dread-filled eyes and color-drained pallor that hit her like a punch to the gut. At the sight of the horror on his face, her mouth goes dry as the ash swirling in the air around. He desperately launches himself toward the approaching inferno. She quickly throws her yo-yo and swings out after his sudden charge.

Together, they land on the roofline overlooking the raging blaze that just a few moments ago had been her home. Ladybug’s face pinches at the sight, but she knows there will be nothing lost just as soon as they purify the akuma and everything is inevitably restored. Yeah, it sucks and is a sight that will likely haunt her future self, but there’s no time to dwell on that. She shakes off the personal concerns of her alter ego, but it is Chat Noir’s scream that makes her blood run cold.

“MARINETTE!”

She grabs his belt-tail to stop him throwing himself from their perch and directly into the flames.

“Chat, wait, what are you doing?”

“Her parents are gone, she's all alone! What the fuck are you doing?! We have to save her!”

He never cusses at her. In fact...she’s never heard him cuss at all. “Chat, calm down, wait-”

“NO, we have to SAVE HER!”

“Chat-”

And he screams her civilian name again and again, blindly clawing toward the edge of the roof, fire glowing in his frantic eyes, devoid of all reasoning.

Ladybug twists her wrist around his tail and jerks with all her might. His back slams into her chest, and she wraps her arms around him from behind, pinning his flailing arms to his sides, yet he continues to thrash and scream. She doesn’t understand the intensity of his reaction; Marinette and Chat have only met on a few occasions, including when she made up that stupid cover story of being in love with him so she wouldn’t figure out her identity, so maybe he still feels guilty? Or at the very least a small personal attachment? And how the hell does he know about her parents' travel itinerary? Whatever the reasons, he’s bucking against her like a panicked, wild animal, desperate to break free of her hold. He’s hyperventilating and out of his mind, and that’s something to file away for later. Right now, she desperately needs her partner focused and by her side in order to face as formidable a foe as this, and so she has to think fast. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The city is burning, and she can’t do this alone. Her chaton is completely useless in his current state. They are out of options.

She tightens her grip around him with one arm, throws her yo-yo, and swings them down into the nearest deserted alleyway. As they land, she tucks them into the shadow of a large dumpster to conceal them from the hellish illumination and the eyes of any fleeing passers by. Chat Noir hits the damp concrete ass first, immediately pinned to the graffitied brick wall. Ladybug is kneeling over him, hands on his shoulders, knee to his chest, holding him in place.

Panic-blinded green eyes stare through her seeing only fire engulfing the bakery that was [ _will be again_ ] Merinette’s home. “Kitty. Chat! CHATON! I need you to look at me. Look at my eyes, right now.” His focus snaps to her, and she takes advantage of his brief presence of mind.  
She takes a breath, closes her eyes... And then opens them, meeting unseeing green.

"Spots off."

~π~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More coming as I am able. I really don't see this going past 5 or 6 chapters, but who knows. I want to hear your thoughts! Comments & kudos are the nourishment of fanfic writing! (Also reminds me that I'm not alone in my obsession over cartoon teenagers...)


	2. But I seem to be struck by you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug did what she had to do in the moment. They'll deal with the consequences when Paris isn't burning.

“Spots off.”

It echoes clearly in his mind, but it’s just sound without meaning or context. Marinette is alone, burning alive, and his imagination spares him no details. _NOT HER NOT HER NOT HER!_ He’s going out of his mind, and Ladybug has him trapped with his back literally to the wall in a filthy alleyway and _wait, what did she just say?_.

He knows the flash of pink means something, just like the sounds that were words a second ago once had meaning before they caught fire in a bakery where his friend burns with them. Images of Marinette _trapped, dying, BURNING!_ have overloaded his senses and are all his screaming brain can process. She’s choking on smoke, and he can’t breathe, and there are blue eyes burning into his own, overlaying the nightmare he can't escape. But then...there's Blue, and it's no longer trapped by red, and the Blue quenches the flames and becomes eyes that become Marinette. And Marinette is sitting in a filthy, damp alleyway - not scorched by flames but cloaked in shadow. Her one knee not pressed to his chest rests on the stained ground, and she is crouching in front of him. Whole. Pristine. Safe. Blinking down at him with worried eyes.

With Bluebell eyes.

He lunges for her and buries his face in her neck and hair as his arms snake around her like steel bands and all he can think is _OH MY GOD I DIDN’T LOSE HER!_

~π~

Marinette, unprepared for Chat’s sudden lunge, would have toppled backwards were it not for the practiced reflexes of her spotted form. In a very un-Marinette-like way, she manages to maintain her crouch, even with her arms immobilized at her side by a very addled superhero whose strength is very much superior to that of her civilian form. It takes her a second to register the wracking sobs on her shoulder and discern the choked, whispered words. 

"Oh God, I thought I'd lost you!"

And then he is kissing her face and holding her head between his clawed hands like she is a precious thing restored to him, and _it doesn’t make any sense!_

A memory. _"Our love broke the world!"_ But these aren't the white-clad hands that cataclysmed the Moon; they are the black-clad hands of her Chaton.

A very confused Merinette feels him tense then, observes his equally confused face as he looks around the otherwise-empty alley with a dawning awareness.

"Wait, where's..."

His eyes slowly refocus on her guarded expression, agonizingly dragging out the moment of realization that is changing everything. Marinette holds her breath, frozen, waiting for the last piece to connect, for the gavel to strike, the guillotine to fall, the shoe to drop, the world to stop. She's shaking because as soon as he opens his mouth their lives will never be the same.

"...LB?"

~π~

 _She had been burning in red and orange and then the Red became Pink, and the Pink became Marinette. Of course. Red was his Lady, and Pink was his Princess, and they were both Blue, and of course, because it couldn't have been anyone else. It had to be Marinette, his Everyday Ladybug who tripped down the classroom steps right before leaping off a stadium roof and into battle her first minutes in spots. The woman who'd saved his ass on rooftops would_ have _to be the girl who put her ass on the line under his father's roof. She stood for truth, she stood up to liars, she stood in the gap for her friends just as much as her city. Marinette was the only person it could have ever been. Of course it was her. And he was an utter fool._

He opens his eyes, not knowing when he'd closed them, and it is like seeing for the first time. He exhales a breath he didn't know he'd been holding because no one but her could make him forget to breathe. His Lady Princess. His Pigtailed Maribug.

He leans into her once more, properly embracing her this time, inhaling the sweet scent of Ladybug and Marinette, baked goods, sunshine, and rooftops in moonlight. It was all the same, both of her and all of her and all of his everything. The scent of everything that matters, the only scent that ever mattered, and how could he have missed it when it was always here at his side in every way and all along?

~π~

One second her face was being peppered with frantic kisses and the next Marinette watched with bated breath as the wheels in his head finally re-engaged. She saw in her mind's eye the scenes that flashed before Cat Noir's eyes as three years compressed into the time it took Green to meet Blue.

She let go of the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. His expression takes her breath away. He has the look of a man drowning while begging to embrace the sea as he embraces her once more.

"It had to be you," he whispers as his lips ghost across her temple.

She feels the fragileness of the moment more acutely than she could have anticipated, knowing it could have been the end of something but now sensing a new beginning. This isn’t the broken Moon that has haunted her for so long. It is a whole sky blazing with stars. Marinette is falling from a precipice without a magical yo-yo and the only thing she has left to catch them is her whispered "why?"

~π~

The akuma screams, bringing the world screaming back to their awareness. Time resumes. They split apart, both looking up as the smoke over Paris lights up in a hellish mockery of sunset, smoke reflecting the fresh onslaught of fire. The fire they have to stop. The burning city they have to restore.

“Spots on!”

Chat Noir returns his eyes to Marinette, now behind the mask of Ladybug. His Lady. _My Lady was here all along…._ His expression holds nothing short of reverence, and she feels stripped bare and utterly exposed under the intensity of his gaze. She sighs. Pandora's box may be open, but there will be time later for accounting. She gives his shoulder a shove as she shakily stands to her feet.

Ladybug looks down at him, fast becoming the picture of strength and courage once again, locking her civilian form behind the mask. He notices it's not without effort, and for the first time the mask looks more like a prison for her identity than its protection. He hates to see the way she raises her shields, the way her eyes go cold out of necessity. Marinette all but disappears until only Creation stands before him.

 _Ok, so maybe I'm not_ that _much of an idiot..._

“We've got to get to the akuma. We can deal with this later!”

The swagger in Chat's grin is a little too forced when he responds with an exagger bow and cocky tone from a dry throat. "After you, M'Lady." 

And off they fly with Chat Noir sticking ferociously by the side of His Lady, his everything, the most wonderful girl in the world. _And he vows one day to make her see herself the way he does._

~π~

The Fireman and Hawk Moth never stood a chance.


	3. I Want To Make You Move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No more secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 is in the works (sneak peak in end notes), and I will post it as soon as I can. In the meantime, enjoy this agonizingly slow tease to cliffhanger...
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos if you are enjoying! I'm trying to get these out as fast as life and inspiration allow!

~π~

Their Miraculous beep as soon as moonlight shines upon an unblemished Paris once more. 

The sky may no longer be choked with orange-illuminated smoke and ash [ _everything is Blue now_ ], but the air somehow hangs even thicker than before, threatening to smother them under the weight of a Magic older than Miracles. Love...and hope..tinged by the fear of losing everything...tainted by the weight of the world upon too-young shoulders. It's a powerful thing that fills and suffocates the lungs more assuredly than ash. It's the moment of potential when everything could go wrong...or right...and both possibilities are overwhelming. It is a sacred moment when Creation and Destruction are two sides of the same coin that hangs in the air, spinning, because even gravity must relinquish its hold over forces more powerful until THEY decide how the coin will land.

Chat Noir starts to raise his fist out of habit but then notices...Her. She looks like she is about to collapse under the weight of the world. He takes a tentative step forward.

"LB?" He gives her shoulder a tentative touch to bring her back to the here and now. "LB, we gotta go." He's getting antsy and shifts his weight from foot to foot. Too many nerves are firing, lighting up his skin, and the Miraculous beeping is a siren in his ears. How can she not notice??

She slowly turns her head to meet his gaze. Her face is drawn and, despite the moonlight, the palest he has ever seen it. She looks as though she's going into shock. As if in sync with his train of thought, a tremor runs up her body.

He pulls her to him, one hand wrapping around to the small of her back, the other pressing her head to his chest, grounding her in the steady beat of his heart.

"M'Lady, we are about to detransform, and the press is headed this way. I'm going to get us out of here, ok?"

She nods against him, and he whisks her to a nearby sewer entrance, mumbling a half-hearted joke apologising for the lacking accommodations. It's an attempt at normalcy that she appreciates even if she doesn't have the inner resources to respond.

They are clinging to each other as he drops them down the manhole. The beeping intensifies, becomes a siren and a siren-song that his Princess approaches.

It's uncannily reminiscent of New York. Out of habit they separate to detransform on opposite sides of a split in the sewer line. New York. He abandoned not only Ladybug in New York but MARINETTE as well...and after everything she'd done for him...to get him there... she'd danced with him in the sky under the moon, and that moment had felt like something old and familiar, like coming home, and now he knows why. She has always been His Lady whether he was too oblivious to recognize it or not…

And he abandoned her in a sewer halfway across the world. God, how could she ever forgive me?

Thinking back to dancing in the sky over New York, all he wants is to see her face - mask or no mask - look like that again, dusted pink under the touch of moonlight. And he realizes he no longer has to wonder what it feels like to touch her skin with his own, to look into her eyes without looking past a mask. He’s done these things. Many times. Adrien’s hands burn with the sense-memory of Marinette’s skin, and he aches for more.

The kwamis eat silently knowing better than to break the spell of what is happening between their charges.

The silence is only interrupted by the trickle and drip of the sewers and a whispered:

"Spots on."  
"Claws out."

~π~

In unspoken agreement he accompanies her back to her home, wanting to make sure she gets there safely and that it is indeed restored and whole once more. He also KNEW that there was no way, no matter how strong she was, that she could possibly NOT be shaken upon returning to a dark and empty home - a home she had just seen burning to the ground. She would need a friend, and he is her friend, suits or none.

~π~

They touch down in sync on the roof of the restored bakery. Marinette's roof. Ladybug's home.

A resigned Ladybug throws open the roof hatch she had vacated what felt like ages before. Whatever strength she had mustered in the alleyway in order to launch back into battle has long since been exhausted. Her legs feel like stiff jelly, and her head _aches_.

“Chat, come inside.” Aside from calling her retransformation in the sewer, it's the first time she's spoken since she cast Miraculous Ladybug. He’s never seen her look or sound so tired, and she’s still not looking _at him._

One after another they drop down onto her bed and then to the floor of her suite. She lets him lead the way to confirm that he's far more comfortable with the space than Chat Noir himself _should_ be. All the confirmation makes her feel, though, is more tired.

~π~

He has been here before, of course, home of Mariette, as both Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste, even if she didn't know just exactly HOW familiar his Chat self was with this room. His Adrien self certainly loved this sanctuary of hers that she has shared with him - with _both of him_ \- full of her warmth and creative vibrancy. If he had to say what “home” should feel like, Marinette’s home would be it. _Marinette_ would be it. _I am such an idiot._

He only has eyes for her as he steps toward her and cradles her precious masked face in his clawed gloves. A tear slips down her cheek, over the mask and his fingers. He wishes he could feel it against his skin. She gently pulls his hands away but doesn’t let go as she clasps them in her own. _Why won’t she look at me?_

~π~

This moment feels equally unreal and more real than any moment in her life. The memory of her home burning makes her knees weak, and the relief that washes over her that she didn't have to come back here alone almost drives her to the floor. _How does he always just...know?_ She wants to weep for grief and joy, but like always, she has to be Ladybug first. Marinette's feelings must wait as they always have, but it's never been so hard to be two people.

There are another's feelings that come first. Chat Noir knows her, inside and out, inside the suit and out... apparently. She had long suspected, but now it's undeniable. How many times may he have stood in this very room? When he said he loved the woman under the mask, she never thought it could actually turn out to be true. Now, not only must she break the heart of Ladybug's beloved Chaton, she must also break the heart of someone clearly important to Marinette. The weight of the Miraculous has never been a burden that could crush her. Until now.

~π~

Her eyes are the Blue of sadness as she says, “Chat...I do...love you. So much. You are my partner. My best friend. You mean SO MUCH to me. But...remember that...b-boy I told you about?”

The pang he feels isn’t unfamiliar, but the intensity is a thousand times worse this time… This time it isn't just Ladybug rejecting him, it's Marinette, too, and he's preparing for the final, crushing blow he knows is coming…

...until he follows her eyes to scan the room.

And his heart stops.

His own face stares back at him from nearly every surface...posters, magazine clippings, photos, web print-outs, some with hearts, and his mostly-naked body pinned above her bed. He’s seen her room before, but he never really looked. _How did he never look? How did he miss it?_ Chat’s eyes, widened with dawning realization and awe, drift back to her blushing face as her words break through the pulse rushing in his ears.

Her expression is wistful, sad, and distant with years. “I've loved Adrien for so long, but he doesn't even see me. Not like that. And here you are.” She looks at him for the first time since before they dropped into the sewer. “And for some reason my identity means something to you, and you look at me like…. _That_. And I can't stand it, Chat, bc I love you so fucking much," [ _She never curses…_ ], "but it's always been him! It's always been Adrien since this one stupid time he gave me his umbrella and asked me to be his friend...”

Her voice is growing unsteady as she continues, unable to stop now that the barrier of her identity has fallen, and all her masks come crashing down. “He will never see me as more than a friend - a _GOOD_ friend - and I know it's a stupid, unrequited crush - _LOVE!_ \- that I need to get over, but it's so hard when I can't walk down the street without falling into his _gorgeous green eyes_ plastered all over the damn city." That last sentence comes out as a groan. "Chat, he's the boy. And if I'd never met him, I could totally see myself falling head over h-heels for you." She sniffs and steadies her breath. "But my heart was his first, whether he w-wants it or n-not, and I don't know how to take it back!”

She lowers her chin and starts to the cry the silent tears of a slowly breaking heart.

 _I’m the boy!_ he thinks, but what he says is, “Please don't.”

She misunderstands his meaning. "I'm sorry. I'm SORRY! You don't need to hear this! I just wanted to explain. God I'm so cruel!" And her voice breaks into sobs as she falls on her knees and collapses in on herself.

“No!” Chat drops to the floor in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Please don't ...stop loving… _him._ ”

She gasps and looks back up at him. He’s never seen her eyes - not Ladybug’s or Marinette’s - so open, so vulnerable, so lost. So unmasked.

“God, I am such a fool,” he whispers as he kisses her on her forehead and rests their heads together.

It’s his turn to rescue her from the mental anguish inflicted by stupid and unnecessary secrets they've kept for so long. She has nothing left to hide, and now it’s his turn.

“Claws in,” he whispers.

~π~

“NO DON’T!” she cries and turns her back to him, covering her eyes from the flash of green that overwhelms the moonlit room.

“Marinette.” A bare hand runs down her spotted shoulder, and she catches sight of pale skin adorned by a silver, not-unfamiliar ring. Then he’s kneeling behind her with both hands on her shoulders.

She looks up at Adrien’s poster looking down at her, but this time it’s the green eyes of her Chaton staring back at her and Adrien’s voice behind her that whispers, “Marinette, look at me. Please.”

_Oh. God._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  SNEAK PEAK OF CHAPTER 4!   
>  **
> 
> She can’t. She can’t turn around. She can’t breathe. She can’t feel her body because it’s been dunked in ice. She can’t see because she can’t open her eyes because opening her eyes means she can’t _UN_ see that the green eyes were always the same green eyes whether they looked at her from the desk in front of her or from behind a mask. She can’t _UN_ feel that the same [ _ring-clad_ ] hand that offered her an umbrella also offered her roses. She can’t _UN_ know that the lips she’s traced a thousand times on paper were the eager lips she’s already kissed below a mask.
> 
> _And do they still long to kiss her again?_
> 
> _What does it mean if they don’t?_
> 
> _What does it mean if they_ DO?


	4. Because You're Standing Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien finally has a lot to say. And tries really hard not to make puns. And Plagg is a delightful asshole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-betaed, and I'm fixing typos as I go. This story just really wants to get churned out.

She can’t. She can’t turn around. She can’t breathe. She can’t feel her body because it’s been doused in ice. She can’t see because she can’t open her eyes because opening her eyes means she can’t **UN** see that the green eyes were always the same green eyes whether they looked at her from under an umbrella or from behind a mask. She can’t **UN** know that the same [ _ring-clad_ ] hand that offered her that umbrella also brought her countless shades of roses. She can’t **UN** feel that the lips she’s traced a thousand times on paper were the eager lips she’s already kissed under the onslaught of akumas.

_And do they still long to kiss her again?_

_What does it mean if they don’t?_

_What does it mean if they_ DO?

~π~

He doesn’t know how he knows the moment she knows, but he knows. And he knows she knows he knows she knows. She shrinks in on herself, a keening building in her throat, her eyes closed tight, her head shaking almost imperceptibly back and forth. It warms and breaks his heart, and his skin feels too small and too warm like he could burst or float away, and he wants to laugh for joy and hold her like he did in the sky above New York, but he knows he has to play this right. It may just be the most critical moment of his life. He _can’t fuck it up_. Everything depends on purrfection.

_Ugh, don't pun...don'tpundon'tpun!_

He's not too oblivious to understand that he’s not great with social nuances and complexities. It's one of the reasons being Chat Noir came easier than being Adrien. Instead of allowing him to develop meaningful relationships and learn to navigate tricky social situations, his father kept him in a gilded cage and fashioned him [ _NO PUNS!_ ] into an icon. SO... scrap relying on any sort of interpersonal know-how to navigate the current crisis.

_Actually, you know what? Marinette is pretty terrible at it, too. BUT NO DON'T LEAD WITH THAT!_

He's still Adrien. She's still Marinette. They are still Chat Noir and Ladybug. They've always been connected, they've always understood each other on levels he's come to understand are pretty exceptional in their own individual rights. Put it together? They are two halves of the same whole. _Soul mates._ She couldn't give her heart to Chat because he already had it. And he couldn't fall in love with Marinette because he loved a girl behind a mask he'd given up hoping would turn out to be her after all.

Yeah, he's pretty sure no amount of social experience could prepare _anyone_ for this scenario.

Time to wing it. So what DOES a superhero do when his superhero partner he's been madly in love with for four years turns out to be the girl he always hoped she'd be who loves his secret identity? Crazy as it sounds it all makes sense… how Marinette could be so, well, awkward around Adrien while fearless with Chat Noir. 

Adrien suddenly feels naked without his mask. As naked as she does now. 

He's still nervously-consolingly stroking her shoulders, unsure if his hands are shaking or if it's her tremors, but he guesses it's both.

She's on her knees, back still to him, cradling herself about as tight as she can without turning herself inside out, and it hurts him to see her so stricken...because of him?

He lifts his hands from her shoulders to run them through his hair and down his face and sighs. Fortunately, Plagg knows the place as well as himself and already headed through the floorboards for the bakery below without a word. _For once._

_Ok. Moment of truth...again._

"M'Lady." She jumps as his soft voice breaks through the charged lull. He pretends he doesn't hear her muffled sniffles. She startles again as he gently rests his hand between her shoulder blades and begins to run soothing [ _he hopes_ ] circles. But she's not pulling away, so it's a start. He scoots closer until his knees frame her hips and ever so cautiously wraps his arms around her, blanketing her back with his chest, forehead on her shoulder. She's still trembling but doesn't pull away. In fact, he feels her ever so slightly relax into his arms.

_So far so good…_

In this position, his lips are close enough to her ear that he can speak in subdued tones and trust she won't miss a word. He doesn't have a plan, but this will be the most important conversation of his life, and he _Cannot. Fuck. It. Up._

_Here goes…_

"I feel like this would be easier if I were in my mask, too, but since Plagg is downstairs probably devouring your inventory, I figured we could try it this way?"

_Smooth, man. Are you trying to make a joke or...suggest a sex position? Crap...don’t think about sex… Ok, start over._

He sighs. Snuggles his face into her neck and hair. Inhales deeply. Sighs again as the smell of both of her washes over him.

"I love you." She gasps and stiffens. He tightens his arms around her like that can somehow force the truth of his words into her skin, her bones, her soul. "I have ALWAYS loved you." From this point, the words pour out of him. "I never cared that you were this amazing superhero with badass powers who could do anything…who won the admiration of the entire world. The first time I saw Ladybug I saw a terrified girl -" she is practically vibrating with tension, but he keeps going, "- who miraculously" [ _NO PUNS!_ ] "summoned the kind of courage you only read about in epic legends. And, even though she was a 13-year-old kid who had just unexpectedly found herself newly suited up in spots and charged with, like, _saving the world_ , she hurled herself into a battle to rescue her akumatized friend and protect her city...with only a clumsy, random, arrogant guy, dressed as a CAT of all things, for backup. I probably know better than anyone ever will what that day was like for you. It was sink or swim, and you...you fucking FLEW. And I knew. I _knew_ in that moment, I didn't care about the suit, the powers, or the mystique. I was immediately and hopelessly IN LOVE with the girl who could do that. You...you outshine the sun...as Ladybug...and as Marinette.

“Because Marinette is this amazing girl I was lucky enough to meet at school...who gave me a second chance and always made sure to stand up to cruelty, to do whatever it takes to look out for her friends. She's creative and smart and SO TALENTED, and I wanted to love her so badly, but I could never be enough for her when I was in love with someone I didn't think I'd ever get to see beyond the suit. But I SEE YOU, Marinette. I've ALWAYS SEEN YOU. I just, you know, thought that you deserved better than someone who was in love with...well...also you?"

He laughs awkwardly to himself. "And you did EVERYTHING you could to make sure I saw you as two separate people. Right, Multimouse? You… _OH MY GOD...you...had the FOX miraculous, too!_ Holy hell, Marinette, you're so amazing." He nuzzles into her. "You amaze me. Both of you. And...and…" His throat is going dry, but he has to get the next part out. He has to be courageous like she's always been. "And you...you loved the boy behind the mask all along, too, but he was an idiot and thought the only way you'd ever see _him_ was if he hid behind a mask.”

She makes a choking sound, but he can’t let her stop him from getting the rest of what he has to say out in the open, to lay himself bare before her as thoroughly as she has before him, even if maybe she didn't do it as much on purpose...

“Please...please don’t take your heart back. I’m so sorry I didn’t know. But mine was already, and has always been, yours. And I promise to spend the rest of my life making sure you never doubt it again.”

“Dude, did you just propose?”

“PLAGG, WHAT THE FUCK???”

There's a sudden snort and then Marinette is shaking with fits of laughter. Adrien thinks his heart must have finally burst and this is what Heaven sounds like.

"Tikki," she says through subsiding giggles, "spots off!"

An exhausted and exasperated Tikki flies out of Marinette's now-plain, silver studs, grabs Plagg,

"BUT-"

" _NO._ "

and dives through the floor before the kwami of destruction can cataclysm the moment further.

A much more comfortable stillness settles over the room, Marinette wrapped in his bare arms, and he thinks, _now THIS is Heaven…_

~π~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like a lots of y'all have subscribed, so thanks for following along with my little side project at the almost-a-year-in-quarantine marker.
> 
> Kudos and comments are lifeblood, & it's nice to know I'm spreading joy during a lonely time.
> 
> If you're following the chapter titles, you can guess what's coming next. ^__^


	5. If Your Body Matches What Your Eyes Can Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No more holding back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 3/16: Chap 6 is finally back on the rails chugging along! Longest chapter yet and still going. I promise it'll be worth the wait!

It's a new sensation holding Ladybug and feeling the magic wash over her as the suit de-materializes leaving Marinette in his arms.

As with his own, it starts from her feet, and runs up her body, but he's only ever felt it from the inside-out. As her transformation drops, it tickles his face like the brush of butterfly wings, but almost electric, and for a split-second it's like cradling light itself. It smells like lightning and rain, fresh-baked cookies, and passion fruit. It feels like curling up in fresh linens and waking up to the most perfect sunrise. It's the magic of Ladybug but the essence of Marinette. And it's perfect.

She _finally_ turns to look at him with the last of her laughter sparkling in her eyes - hope and mischief and the blazing, unguarded fire of her heart. It's like staring into the sun. He's glad he's already on his knees already because that look would have driven him there if he weren't. She radiates the kind of love and joy that would make the gods themselves weep to know it. Even the city of art and love cannot hold a candle to what he sees shining in her face.

His answering expression is the same begging-to-be-drowned look she had seen on Chat's. _God, how did I miss it for SO LONG???_ For a second it's like the two of him are overlaid but slightly out of register, like a cross eyed misalignment coming into focus... Then they fuse into someone new and intimately familiar who for the first time becomes two parts of the same whole that is more than its sum. Adrien was her Sunshine Boy, the Black Cat her midnight-cloaked confidante and other half. But _Adrien her Chaton_ is every star and sun and galaxy that has ever graced the sky. He is green spring afternoons, blue summer nights, and silver moonlight. He is the feeling of floating and flying, of leaping across rooftops, of throwing oneself from the Eiffel Tower and knowing there's one person who will always catch you no matter what.

She wants nothing more than to drown with him. Sink into him. Bury herself deep into that sea of green until it fills every part of her. Air is overrated when he is the only sky she ever needed and the wind itself that makes her fly.

But right now, all either of them wants is to _fall_.

The energy in the room changes, charges...

~π~

_Adrien had imagined his kisses with Ladybug...the ones he couldn't remember... He imagined a real first kiss when he'd look into her eyes. She would tremble and turn the shade of pink that only Marinette blushes around him. That color of dawn before sunrise. He'd imagined it with and without his mask. With and without hers (which, when hope arose beyond all reason, revealed Marinette underneath.) He'd imagined it in a variety of circumstances that led to a variety of other circumstances. His favorites were the times when they'd look deeply into each other's eyes and close the gap millimeter by painful millimeter, eyelids falling equally slowly, until the first brush of contact when the music would crescendo and fireworks would explode. And then his brain would, too._

~π~

 _Marinette had imagined her first kiss with Adrien that she never thought would actually happen...and even if the opportunity ever did present itself, she assumed she'd chicken out before it materialized. Or blurt out something that would make him run away forever. Or generally just blow it and die old and alone without even a hamster. But knowing those lips had already been on hers? That she had kissed Adrien's Agreste not once but TWICE and that the only reason it hadn't been more wasn't for his lack of trying? Knowing that_ Adrien Agreste _was her partner whom she trusted, depended on - even loved - wholly and completely?_

~π~

The charge in the room amps impossibility higher.

Then the lightning strikes.

One minute they are drowning in each other's eyes and the next they crash together like the tide that can no longer be denied. Hands reach for faces, tongues beg for entrance. Levees of restrained desire crumble. They rise up until they are pressed together lips to knees. From this closeness, she can feel his own desire pressing into her hip, and it electrifies her. She slides her hands down his neck to his collar, and then they are both pushing at each other's outer shirts, fighting to free their arms of layers with minimal break in contact. 

He lunges for the pulse point below her ear, and she gasps, a move which presses her breasts and hardening nipples more firmly against his chest. He devours her neck with teeth, lips, tongue, sliding his hands to her waist and tugging at her shirt hem, asking permission. She pressed back, raising her arms as he peels the tank top over her head. But before he can resume lavishing her neck, she echoes his movements, and he obliges, raising his own arms while she frees him of his tee-shirt.

As their lips rush back together, he slides his hands from her hips up along her ribs and back down, around to cup her ass. And then he's standing up and she's wrapping her legs around his waist, lips and tongues not breaking their frantic pillaging as he walks them toward the chase and follows her down.

As he is relocating them, Marinette makes two _unhelpful-to-her-libido_ and _we'll-come-back-to-this-later_ observations in a far flung corner of her brain. First, _when did he get so buff outside the suit???_ Second and less relevant to current matters [ _because it has no bearing on all the places she is about to run her tongue and wait-who-said-that??_ ], she notes that between the two of him, he really does know the layout of room, probably better than anyone save for herself. But she'll leave that thought for when every nerve and brain cell isn't being scorched by the press of [ _not enough!_ ] bare skin and demanding mouths and the feel of all that newly-bloomed musculature under her hands.

He lays on top of her, her legs still around his waist, and supports his weight with his left elbow, left hand cradling the base of her head like even with the aid of gravity he can't get their mouths close enough, like even gravity has a less demanding pull upon them.

Lost in her voraciousness for his mouth, she feels his right hand, where it's been on her ass cheek since he lifted her from the floor, squeeze and pull her tighter against him. Simultaneously he grinds his pelvis into hers, and they briefly break the kiss to both groan at the pressure.

Encouraged and mindlessly aroused, he does it again. Never one to be bested, she answers with an agonizing circle of her own hips as she swallows the answering moan straight from his throat.

A different kind of pressure is building - has been building slowly for years - and is screaming for release. RIGHT. NOW. The genie is unbottled, the box is open, and there's no going back. Except, in this position, their options are pretty limited...

They break apart, gasping for shared air, foreheads pressed together, eyes shut tight because it's too much to watch play out in real time what each is doing to the other with the roaming of hands and grinding of hips.

 _Their much-too-clad hips…_ seems to be the mutual realization.

Adrien flips them, so Marinette is straddling him. Their eyes fly open, and blown pupils lock as he slides his hands up from her waist to cup her breasts over her bra. 

"May I?" His words are thick with arousal and scraped through his throat between ragged breaths.

 _And not the only thing that's thick...or in need of scraping..._ her helpful-unhelpful brain supplies.

God his voice is husky with sex, and they're barely to second base, and Marinette thinks it's hottest thing she's ever heard, and she could absolutely die happy knowing what Adrien's sex voice sounds like, what his mussed up hair looks like splayed on her chaise cushions… it's too much and not enough. She wants to ravage the boy on both sides of the mask until he forgets both his names. And she can't think of anything she's ever wanted more.

As answer to his request for permission, Marinette jerks the bra straps down over her arms while he makes fast work of the clasp...before he slowly and reverently lowers the cups from her breasts.

His eyes immediately drop to her exposed chest, nipples pebbled with the arousal coursing through her body. She can practically watch the wheels turning as he splays his hands around her ribs, thumbs tucking under the plumpness, wanting to devour her breasts with hands and mouth but not wanting to deprive his eyes of the feast.

She giggles at her silly Chaton who seems to have hit the most difficult dilemma of his young life. He doesn’t miss the way they move as she laughs, as she breathes, as her pulse pounds under his hands.

"You look like the cat who caught the canary but forgot where to put it."

"I'm allergic to feathers."

He can tell without looking away from her breasts that she expected at least an attempt at a witty retort or entendre. But she'll have to live with that disappointment because there's no blood supply left to supply puns. It has vacated the upstairs premises, and he figures she's lucky he can string words into any semblance of sentence. Who the fuck gives a shit when the world's most gorgeous pair of tits is RIGHT THERE just begging for every bit of attention he can lavish. Forgive him if his brain can't figure out the right utensil for this particular delicacy. [ _And thank fuck his father can't hear the language running through his golden head right about now. Gabriel would have his hide...or whatever of it is left when His Lady is through with him tonight..._ ]

"Chaton?" she prompts. "You are welcome to enjoy them with more than just your eyes, you know."

 _Wait what? Holy. Fucking. Shit._

That's it. There goes any potential for further coherence. Might as well put his mouth to something it's capable of because the only thing likely to come out of it any time soon is drool, and he's got an idea on how to stop that leak before he goes total blue-screen-of-death, boot-drive-not-detected...

~π~

To say his mouth is "capable" would have been an understatement. The tongue that twisted a thousand puns draws wanton gasps from Marinette's own mouth as he lavs at her breasts, interspersed here and there with nips, sucks, kisses. He’s scenting her, marking her, raking his nails down her spine and pressing her tighter to his lap. She spreads her knees as far as the width of the chaise will allow and thrusts forward as he thrusts up. He mutters “Oh god” into her cleavage as she gasps and writhes for more contact.

They shift to a sitting position with his back against the chaise, feet bracing on the floor, and he resumes his ministrations, rolling tongue around each nipple, alternating between fingers, lips, tongue, teeth. She grinds down harder, moves faster, slides her knees wider.

All he wants to do is thrust up and lose himself to the friction between their bodies, but instead he drops his hands to her hips to still her movements and rests his head against her sternum as he pants out “Stop. Wait.” Her heart hammers into his forehead. She’s panting as hard as he is, which makes the tops of her breasts brush against his jaw with every inhale, and that combined with her weight pressing down is almost enough to send him over the edge.

It's too much. Not enough. He needs to _think_ , but all he wants to do is hit the gas and drive full speed off the cliff. It takes him a few more breaths to find his voice amidst the screaming in his body NOT to stop.

"M'La- Marinette...I need you to tell me what you want. I...I want you...s-so bad...I want all of you, and I want to give you all of me...but...but...I've...I've never…" He gulps. He can't have this conversation with his face pressed just above naked boobs. He has his limits, and this is apparently one of them.

It takes his remaining will-power to lay his head back and look up into Marinette's face - past blooming marks on her neck [ _his marks_ ], past slightly parted, kiss-swollen lips, over arousal-stained cheeks, up to bluebell eyes and _God, her eyes._ She has carried secrets for so long, giving of as much of herselves to him as she dared, but that openness always came second to her responsibility to her city and the burden of the Miraculous. With the secrets stripped away, her soul is laid open to him in its entirety. It's exhilarating, terrifying, and the most beautiful sight he's ever seen. He knows in that moment that all of her is his, and she's looking at him like he's...well, like he's everything she's ever wanted. He only hopes he returns the same message with his own gaze.

He lifts right hand from her hip to cup her cheek, rubs his thumb over the pink glow, extents his fingers into the hairline behind her ear. She leans into the touch, eyes shuttered. He uses that hand to guide her face down to his, brings their lips back together in the chastest of kisses. Her eyelashes flutter on his face like the brush of wings...like the butterflies she purifies and restores, like the ladybugs that make the world new. She makes everything new, and she is remaking him, too - welcoming all of him and knitting him into a single whole that only she can fathom. In her love, he can be all of him. In his love, she can be all of her. In that, there is a magic as old as time…the kind of magic where creation embraces destruction and forges them into one and the same and inseparable.

Suddenly the need to be closer, to enact that fusion, is the only thing that matters.

Save one.

"Marinette…"

He kisses his way across her jaw toward her ear, toward her Miraculous, where his Miraculous-clad hand cradles her head. His whispers make her shiver.

"I need to know if this is what I think it is… I've never… But I need it to be you… I've always needed it to be you…" He's babbling. _Get it together, Adrien. If you can't say it, you can't do it._

"I want to make love to you." She gasps as a tremor runs through her. "But I need to know where you're at. I need you to tell me yes or no because I'm...I'm really close…" He feels his own cheeks burning. "And...and if we are doing this, I need a second. And I need you to say yes. And I need you to mean it."

A tear pools against his hand, against his _skin_ this time. On impulse, he tastes it. Another shiver runs through her. "Yes," she whispers, and it is the assertive clap of thunder that invites no questioning.

_Well, let there be fucking light…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally planning on getting through the whole deed in this chapter, but this felt like a good stopping point. Y'all can catch your breath like Adrien here, and we shall resume momentarily (or sometime in the next week!)
> 
> Kudos appreciated. Comments let me know where your brains are at & give me creative lifeblood. If I broke hour brain, lemme hear it. 😈 Tell me your favorite lines and if this is working for you. Thanks for reading / subscribing!


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